Freedom from taxes? Not for all businesses, Cuomo says

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will waive them—all of them—for 10 years after your company locates on any of the SUNY campuses upstate, or in other state-owned properties upstate.

But if you're a law firm, a real estate firm, a retailer, Starbucks or a pizza shop, you're out of luck.

Those restrictions are coming to light Thursday, one day after Cuomo announced his plan to exempt businesses from property taxes, business taxes and sales taxes (and waive income taxes for their employees, for five years).

Cuomo needs the Legislature's approval. No bill has been introduced yet, though leaders of both houses attended Cuomo's press conference at the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering—perhaps the strongest example of the business-education ties that Cuomo is looking to establish.

It appears the benefits will have the same restrictions as the state's Excelsior Jobs tax credits, its primary incentive for job growth. Sectors banned from that program include real estate, law, entertainment, utilities and firms providing "business services."

A spokesman says the "tax-free zones" will prohibit companies from just shifting workers from their current location to their new university address. The state will have the right to make the companies pay taxes if they fail to live up to their commitments to create new jobs.

A company's move must be approved by both SUNY officials and those at Empire State Development Corp., the state agency in charge of promoting private-sector growth.

Among the state-owned properties that will be tax free is the state's W. Averell Harriman State Office Campus, which has languished for a dozen years as the state repeatedly started, and then dropped, efforts to spark business growth at the site.

Cuomo also says 3 million square feet of commercial space at private universities upstate will participate in the program. Spokesmen from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, and the College of St. Rose, in Albany, both say it's too early to know if their schools will participate.

Cuomo said three of every four startups in New York leave the state sometime during their first year.

"Why? It gets back to New York being bad for business, the high-tax problem. If we just improve that, just keep more of the businesses that we start, it would be a tremendous gain," Cuomo said. "I believe this will actually wind up making us money."